Apple Blossom… Just Because (And the Rose of *near* Death)

I was just going to post some photos of our recent apple blossom - because it was beautiful and I love it - but while I was re-sizing photos some of my roses got added as well. Because. Well. Roses.

Apple-blossom and roses are some of the things that I will really miss about the valley.
I suspect mangos and frangipani will make up for them and you know - air that doesn't give Beloved asthma, Poppet wheeze and Littlest gunk-eye - but I will miss the roses.

And the apple blossom. We're due for a bumper crop - the trees are laden with tiny green apples and it's strange to wonder who will harvest them. The fact we couldn't go out to get the apples this year because of all the toxic smoke makes me quite reconciled to leaving.

But o my roses. The roses of the valley are spectacular. Heady, dreamy, lushly scented, deeply coloured. The girls and I went to the Rose Gardens again yesterday and Poppet and I agreed it was a garden fit for a princess, even a fairy princess. (These roses are from our garden, I brought my camera, but forgot the camera card… duh, so we just enjoyed them.)

It's possible I've been googling and discovered a Queensland rose growing society and a place that sells roses designed for the tropics. But, while I reserve judgement, I've never seen a tropical rose that has the same wild, lush soul as a temperate rose.

Please particularly admire the Rose of Death. The big pinky orange rose is the one that was in the cup that Beloved knocked onto a power board reaching for his phone in a dark room. We don't actually know when the pain in his chest will go away, although they steadied his heart and over the course of a night his heart readings went from saying a part had been fried to normal. All because of a rose. If it wasn't so completely petrifying, it would be almost poetic.

Do you have any Spring Garden love? (Or Autumn?) Or stories of electric shock. (The comforting variety would be best…)